President Biden's Enemies Are Not Who He Thinks They Are

It is said that you can judge a person by their friends.  Perhaps you can also judge a political leader by his or her enemies—especially that leader’s perceived enemies. Over the last two years, President Biden’s careless rhetoric reveals much about who he perceives as his enemies.  And the rhetoric continues. His enemies, however, are not who he thinks they are.  Meanwhile, Biden and America do have enemies who would do us harm. Misidentifying your adversaries and not recognizing your allies is as dangerous as it is unhelpful.  It is also grossly unfair to the American people.

President Biden has a penchant for seeing anyone who disagrees with him politically as an enemy.  As a result, his reaction to people is often seen as bullying and condescending, whether toward an ordinary citizen, a reporter, or a Member of Congress.  He has been known to use expletives in his name-calling and has, at times, spoken of having a physical altercation with people who question his opinions.

We can never forget his speech last September in front of Independence Hall in Philadelphia.  While the red lighting and the use of Marines as stage props were unusual, his rhetoric was not.  It was, unfortunately, classic Joe Biden.  He singled out so-called “MAGA Republicans,” but in his definition of that moniker, he seemed to include some 74 million Americans—anyone who supported Donald Trump. In the name of unity, he disenfranchised half of all Americans.

While invoking the Constitution, Biden’s words were a denial of the freedoms guaranteed to every American in that historic document.  He castigated freedom of speech and any thought that countered his own speech and thought. For example, he said his political opponents are “determined to take this country backwards—backwards to an America where there is no right to choose, no right to privacy, no right to contraception, no right to marry who you love.”  The Constitution protects the right to think and say whatever you wish—even if the President does not like it.  But over and over, Biden has indicated that if you oppose his policies, you are a threat to democracy.  You are the enemy in the “battle for the soul of the nation.”

In speaking to various leaders at the Summit for Democracy last December, Biden correctly identified the defense of democracy as “the defining challenge of our time ” but was quick to quip that democracy was in retreat in the United States as well.  Yet he criticized Arizona and Texas for exercising the democratic freedom of their elected state officials for trying to secure their borders because the United States government will not.  He sued Arizona over shipping containers placed along the border, claiming they were trespassing on federal land.  Yet he is silent about the millions of illegal migrants who trespass on federal land by entering the country unlawfully.  He has said nothing about the 137 people apprehended on the southern border who are on the terrorism watchlist, the thousands who are victims of human and sexual trafficking, or the thousands killed by the fentanyl that floods across the border daily.

For the energy crisis in America that his policies created, Biden has, at various times, blamed energy companies, foreign leaders, service station owners, and the American people.  Those who question climate change are not just misguided but also an existential threat. Just a few days ago at a private fundraiser, Biden said, “If we don’t stay under 1.5 degrees Celsius, we’re going to have a real problem. It’s the single-most existential threat to humanity we’ve ever faced, including nuclear weapons. . . . And so we have a real big problem.” This is a naïve and foolish claim. If Biden truly believes climate change is a greater threat than the horror of nuclear war, he becomes an even larger threat than the climate change of which he speaks.

The list of misperceptions and mischaracterizations could go on and on. The President falsely accused Border Patrol agents of whipping migrants with the reins of their horses, vowing to hold them accountable.   The only problem is he never seems to hold himself accountable.  He deemed the Supreme Court of the United States—the third branch of the government—illegitimate because he disagreed with their decision.  He used his Department of Justice to investigate parents who criticized their local school boards and wondered if they might be domestic terrorists.  His Administration often verbally targets pro-life Pregnancy Resource Centers and vociferously demonizes anyone who is pro-life.

America faces serious challenges at times, as well as adversaries at home and abroad. In fact, the United States has real enemies.  The list includes Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, the Taliban, and assorted other terrorist groups. The cartels in Mexico are enemies, responsible for unspeakable atrocities and the death of many Americans.  All of these are real enemies of America.  But as Gerald Baker reminds us in the Wall Street Journal, “When his administration elevates (or reduces) its domestic enemies to the status of a foreign enemy, the only winners are the real foreign enemies .”